


la mer à l'intérieur

by Edie_Rone



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Baby shark, CW: william/jackson erasure, Dad!Mulder doin his thing, F/M, MSR, Post S11, Traveling Wilburys - Freeform, and misguided in SO MANY WAYS but, and these two well these three, baby needed attention at two in the a.m., deserve happiness, i guess I have to do something with it, if it's canon, is so heteronormative, it's just a good little ditty, listen the whole miracle baby no. 2 thing was stupid, sorry the bit of the Sesame Street song at the end, that will randomly make me cry sometimes, this is soft and sweet and will give you cavities but warm your heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2021-02-26 21:07:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21685393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edie_Rone/pseuds/Edie_Rone
Summary: It’s somewhere past midnight but well before dawn, on a night like all their nights now: no set schedule, no place to be in the morning, no commute, no real urgency of any kind beyond the utterly commonplace needs of their second (third? Fourth, hundredth?) miracle.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 6
Kudos: 52





	la mer à l'intérieur

Scully comes awake slowly, in the pitch dark, dreaming/feeling an unusually sustained rumble of thunder. She takes her time, savoring for the moment the fact that not every waking anymore has to be the old fight-or-flight, ride-or-die, mortal-peril gasping and clutching and reaching for the nearest firearm. 

And she’s right, again — it’s somewhere past midnight but well before dawn, on a night like all their nights now: no set schedule, no place to be in the morning, no commute, no real urgency of any kind beyond the utterly commonplace needs of their second (third? fourth, hundredth?) miracle. She’s not even 100% sure what day of the week it is, and god, what bliss to know this kind of peace. 

That sound, though … _the bath_ , she places it. The huge old clawfoot downstairs, it must weigh half an actual ton; the boys from the salvage yard had taken one look at their rickety, narrow, steep stairs and suggested this be the downstairs bathroom’s finest feature instead of the master bath’s indulgence. And that’s before the tonnage required to fill it — they’ve stayed in motels whose alleged pools held less fluid volume. 

But why? 

And as she lies still, listening, she starts to figure it out: Kit must have woken, and Mulder responded without waking her. And whatever it was that woke both baby and father, it must’ve required a bath. She can’t help the grin on her face: As with any four-month-old, every once in awhile, the situation is well beyond a dirty diaper — it’s a fucking Superfund site in there. Ain’t enough wipes in the world to finish the job. 

He could’ve just used the plastic baby bath in their bathroom, but if the whole idea was to avoid waking her, he’d clearly tried another way — he just didn’t consider the old pipes, the way they’d announce his actions and whereabouts all over the house. God, how she loves him. 

She checks in on the boob front — they’re full, but not painfully so. There’s time. But Kit will probably want at least a snack before she settles back in, post-bath, and since it’s either that or tether herself to the goddamned Medela to fill some bags with liquid gold, Scully decides to go join the midnight party. 

Three steps down, she hears it: Mulder singing. His gravelly, borderline-tuneless rendition of an ancient Traveling Wilburys song is so bad, she almost cries for loving it so much: 

> _I’ve been fobbed off, and I’ve been fooled_
> 
> _I’ve been robbed and ridiculed_
> 
> _In daycare centers and night schools_
> 
> _Handle me with care…_

He hums the chorus, possibly with something stuck in his mouth? Then, in a great splashing among Kit’s unmistakable baby giggles, finishes strong with 

> _I’ve been uptight and made a mess_
> 
> _But I’ll clean it up myself, I guess_
> 
> _Oh, the sweet smell of success_
> 
> _Handle me with ca_ AAAAAGH 

There’s a graceless yawp, and he exclaims, softly but chidingly, “Hey, baby! That’s my nose! Leggo my Eggo!” 

More giggles from the tiny terror, more splashing — enough, Scully has to see what’s going on in there. 

She tiptoes to the open door, where he’s kept the light low to avoid letting Kit think it’s Morning FunTime, and the sight nearly stops her heart: He’s actually _in_ the bath, not kneeling beside it like she expected; his gaudy red-and-yellow swim trunks billowing, his salt-and-pepper chest and back hair clinging wetly to his skin, his focus so completely, devotedly on their precious, precious, wonderful daughter. 

He’s sitting braced against the far end, knees bent with Kit’s back resting against his thighs so they’re facing each other. She’s safely cradled, underwater to her armpits — it must’ve taken twenty minutes to fill the damn thing, no wonder it woke Scully — and her huge, bright eyes are round and full of the purest delight as she clumsily grabs again for his big dorky face. 

Scully watches as he intercepts one infant pincer fist and speaks into it like a microphone: “And now, one for the youngsters:

> _Baaaaay beeee … SHARK! Doo doo doo doo doo doo!_
> 
> _Baby shark, doo doo doo doo doo doo!_
> 
> _Bay-beee shark! Do -"_

Scully tries to muffle her laugh, but he hears it and turns, positively radiant with joy. He’s not even the tiniest bit embarrassed at being caught in the Baby Shark act. Kit’s burst of wordless babble sounds very like an invitation to join them in the Big Water. 

“Hey,” Mulder says, a very small word that — right here, right now — contains pretty much all the good parts of the universe. 

“Hey,” she answers, feeling rooted to the spot, unfathomably blessed to witness something this ordinary, this lovely. He extends a dripping arm in welcome, and Kit — hilariously — follows suit. It’s enough to get her moving, moving toward them, joining their little circle. She perches on the edge of the tub, one hand caressing Kit’s head and one cradling Mulder’s. The devotion radiating off of both of them makes her want to weep; instead she laughs, amazed and humbled and completely unused to such raw and powerful things. 

“Come on in, the water’s fine,” Mulder says, half in jest, and for once in her life, Scully just … goes with it. She stands up, disrobes, steps in — all in less time than it had taken her to get from the door to the bath in the first place. 

Mulder lifts the baby high; Scully settles her back against his chest and takes Kit in her own arms, this little mer-person somehow made of the two of them, ordinary mortals. Kit goes straight for her breast, suckles comically loudly at first, then more quietly as the urgency passes. 

In the near-silence, Mulder takes a breath, then sings low, rumbly, for her ears alone: 

> _Somewhere in the ancient mystic trinity_
> 
> _You get three as a magic number_
> 
> _The past and the present and the future_
> 
> _The faith and hope and charity_
> 
> _The heart and the brain and the body_
> 
> _Give you three as a magic number_
> 
> _It takes three legs to make a tripod or to make a table stand_
> 
> _And it takes three wheels to make a vehicle called a tricycle_
> 
> _Every triangle has three corners, every triangle has three sides_
> 
> _No more, no less, you don’t have to guess_
> 
> _When it’s three, you can see_
> 
> _It’s a magic number_
> 
> _A man and a woman had a little baby_
> 
> _Yes, they did_
> 
> _And they had three in the family_
> 
> _That’s a magic number_


End file.
